Archive for September, 2008
A WELL DOCUMENTED CASE OF POLTERGEIST ACTIVITY
As reported in ‘Parapsychology, the Controversial Science’ by Dr. Richard Broughton (Ballantine Books, New York: 1991), the Fall of 1967 found Herr Sigmund Adam, a respected lawyer in the German town of Rosenheim, deeply distressed: his office was seemingly self-destructing. The lights were in the habit of going out time and again; the building electrician established on one occasion that the each of the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling had been twisted in its sockets; lights bulbs frequently exploded even when the light was off; electrical fuses would blow seemingly without cause; hanging lamps would frequently swing wildly. Engineers from the local power station brought in an emergency power unit to supply energy unaffected by fluctuations in the external power lines; but the effects continued. Telephone lines also behaved inexplicably: recording equipment installed on the telephone lines by municipal technicians registered many calls originating from the office when no one was using the phones. The case came to the attention of the media, and two documentaries were produced by TV stations. The technicians of both telephone and power companies admitted on camera of being unable to find any explanation for the phenomena. The police was also involved, since the lawyer had filed formal charges against the unknown perpetrators of these events. Professor Hans Bender, a parapsychologist at the University of Freiburg, joined the investigative team, along with two physicists from the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics. They brought in more sophisticated equipment, which enabled them to rule out that the events could be due to causes such as ‘supply current, demodulated high frequency voltages, electrostatic charges, external static magnetic fields, ultrasonic or infrasonic effects, loose contacts or faulty recording equipment and finally manual intervention.’ (p. 218).
The disturbances increased; many of the experts at work on the case witnessed plates jump off the wall, paintings oscillate on their hooks, swinging lamps and banging sounds, drawers opening by themselves, etc. Dr. Bender established that these events only occurred when Annemarie Schneider, a recently hired eighteen-year old secretary, was present at the scene. The young lady became increasingly distressed by the phenomena, eventually developing hysterical contractions of her limbs. She was sent away on leave, and the disturbances immediately, and permanently ceased. The young lady found employment in another office, which also suffered from similar disturbances: but on a much milder scale, and for a brief period of time.
Hardly anyone in the parapsychological community seeks to understand these phenomena in terms of the activities of ill tempered ghosts. Poltergeist (German for ‘noisy spirit’) phenomena appear to be consistently associated with, and possibly originate from, a living person, most frequently a severely stressed adolescent. Which makes well documented instances of these occurrences no less enigmatic, and in need of explanation.
ON DEBORAH BLUM’S ‘ “GHOST HUNTERS”
Deborah Blum is a professor of science journalism at the University of Wisconsin, and a Pulitzer Prize winner for her writings on primate research. She is also the author of ‘Ghost Hunters’ (Penguin Books, 2006), a superbly researched and entertaining book on the search for scientific proof of life after death conducted by William James and the small enclave of engaging personalities who played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Society for Psychical Research (in 1882 in Britain, and in 1885 in the US). Blum, a science writer ‘anchored in place with the sturdy shoes of common sense’ as she describes herself (p. 323), found that the frequentation of the findings of these investigators forced her to reevaluate many of her basic assumptions about the nature of reality. ‘There were days’, she writes, ‘when I could feel the hinges of my brain, almost literally, creaking apart to make room for new ideas’ (p. 324).
Anyone with a modicum of interest in this area would probably greatly enjoy this book. I was impressed by the exceptional level of intellectual honesty, personal integrity, and unbounded commitment that most of these individuals – humanists, philosophers, scientists – brought to this baffling and frustrating field of enquiry over a period of about four decades. Scientists of the highest caliber put their reputation on the line by endorsing this research; but the attitude of the scientific community at large, unsurprisingly, oscillated for the most part between hostile neglect and dogmatic condemnation of the whole research enterprise. Regrettably, some of the assorted humanity that coalesced around the Spiritualist movement of those years – rabid believers, eccentrics, tricksters, pseudo-psychics, neurotics, etc. – provided ample ammunition to the denigrators of this whole field. Whose distinguishing, paradoxical aspect is the inextricable conjunction of the sublime and the grotesque: for the quest for a spiritual reality is sublime indeed; and it is grotesque that it had to be undertaken amidst dancing tables, often hilarious ‘materializations’, inane messages from the Beyond, unbalanced mediums, outrageous trickery. The fact that James and his colleagues willingly submitted to the ordeal narrated by Bloom, and emerged from it far from empty handed, though hardly triumphant, strikes me as a quasi heroic feat.
SCIENCE AS THOUGHT POLICE?
Globeandmail.com, the online version of a leading Canadian newspaper, reports (20 September 2008) that Professor Michel Reiss was summarily dismissed as director of education of Britain’s Royal Society for his approach to the debate on creationism. Reiss, also a Church of England priest, was not suggesting that creationism had any claim to scientific status; he fully supports evolutionism (just like yours truly, by the way). He was merely suggesting that, within the educational context, children who bring creationistic views to the classroom should not have their views outright rejected or ridiculed; rather, Reiss writes, ‘there is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have and doing one’s best to have a genuine discussion’. Apparently, Reiss was simply arguing that a respectful and intellectually rigorous discussion of these views would be the best way to help these children gain an appropriate perspective on this debate. This view was met with outrage by several members of the prestigious Society, the world’s first scientific body. The final position adopted by this organization was that Reiss had done considerable damage to the Society’s reputation. The author of the article notes that this disquieting episode makes it clear that ‘when opinions diverge even slightly from accepted scientific wisdom, they will be met with ruthless suppression. This says something sorry about the state of scientific enquiry as practised by that august body’. Just imagine how any attempt to propose a serious analysis of ‘anomalous phenomena’ within the psychical domain would be received by this Society!
I’m Lucky Fashion Magazines Even Let Me Subscribe to Them
A couple of nights ago I was thinking about the cult of youth and celebrity that controls the mainstream fashion magazines, trying to figure out what’s my complex about anti-intellectuals and what’s objectively verifiable. I called magazine editors my “enemy,” and that’s a pretty strong word. Are they really my enemy? What’s the truth about [...]
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